Unethical health professionals under attack

Many acousticians and some physicians fail their code of ethics where windfarm victims are concerned, says Dr Sarah Laurie

The courageous CEO of Australia's Waubra Foundation, Dr Sarah Laurie, who has been vilified and accused of scaremongering by unethical acousticians, physicians, sociologists, and civil servants from health-related administrations, is warning them in return: they will be held accountable for the harm done to populations while breaching their professional codes of conduct. Wilful blindness and criminal negligence could be used to describe the behaviour of those in health, planning and noise pollution regulatory authorities who now either continue to deny the problems exist, or refuse to investigate them.

The truth is now coming out AGAIN regarding the ill effects of low frequency sound emitted by wind turbines. This includes pulsating infrasound, which can be perceived and sometimes heard by certain persons up to 40 km away, causing them sleep disturbance and deprivation, painful ear pressure, nausea, dizziness, high blood pressure and other symptoms collectively known as Wind Turbine Syndrome, but simply described by most acousticians as "annoyance". The wind industry and some acousticians were well aware of the problems caused to residents by infrasound and low frequency sound emitted by wind turbines, ever since the NASA and US Government-associated study led by Dr Neil Kelley as early as 1985, says Dr Laurie. But those acoustics professionals working in the government departments responsible for health, planning and noise pollution regulation deliberately chose to exclude the measurement of infrasound and low frequency noise in the noise pollution regulations they adopted, causing predictable sufferings among rural populations exposed to wind turbines.

"The safety thresholds for infrasound and low frequency noise exposure levels, established by Kelley et al in 1985 on the basis of their detailed field study and subsequent laboratory data, were not ever adopted in the noise guidelines for wind turbine noise." Dr Sarah Laurie

The numerous victims in the town of Falmouth, Massachusetts, are a harbinger of things to come. There are identical reports of harm all over the world where wind turbines have been installed too close to people.

Wind Turbine Noise, Adverse Health Effects, and Professional Ethics

"So, what we are now seeing with these global reports of serious and deteriorating physical and mental health, sleep deprivation and home abandonments around the world may appear to have been “unintended consequences”, but they were known to some key people nearly thirty years ago, particularly the US department of Energy, NASA, and the many universities involved in this extensive field research.

"The consequences of exposure to impulsive infrasound and low frequency noise generated by wind turbines were also clearly well known to the global wind industry, because of the dramatic change in design which resulted, and because the results were presented at the AWEA sponsored conference.

"And I suggest the consequences of such exposure were also well known to many of the acoustical engineers who provide services to the wind industry, and to the lawyers who helped the developers with the confidentiality clauses in their contracts."

"Perhaps this attitude of “acceptable collateral damage” also partly explains why so few medical or health researchers want to get actively involved in data collection. I have also been told that some researchers have been told their future grants have been threatened, which has discouraged their interest. Others have been refused permission by their university to study the impacts of infrasound, for example."